Notebooks and a bunny

I had to fix some notebooks for the princess. I bought cheap (and not-so-nice) ones and put new covers on them. We didn't really agree with the princess how the covers should look like so as a compromise we made one my way and another her way. I love different kinds of papers but this had to be covered with plastic otherwise it wouldn't last long at school. The paper is regular wrapping paper most shops over here use and in Portuguese it's called "manilla". It comes in different colours but I particularly like this one. The picture is from the 1930s by Martta Wendelin (a Finnish artist, 1893-1986). The princess cover is simply self adhesive plastic with Disney princesses on it. Do I have to say which one was "mine" and which one the princess chose...
And this is a precious little bunny the princess came up with inspired by the warpping paper (apparently OK for this kind of crafting) and clear self adhesive plastic. This is a bunny rabbit from behind. You can most probably see the big ears, the body and the tale on the bottom. She did it all by herself and stuck in on our bedroom door. I thought it was adorable.

The Total Woman

I just started to read The Total Woman by Marabel Morgan and it's fantastic! I'm not really into self-help-handbooks but this is really practical and it seems to work. OK, I've only just started the book and today was the first day I got organised, planned my morning and actually did what I had planned to do.

Last night I wrote down the things I'd like to get done during the morning, priorised them and went to bed. In the morning I woke up feeling quite energetic. After the kids had left I first sat on the computer and finished off a piece of work. I then went downstairs and did everything I had written on the list for kitchen work. I even prepared both lunch and dinner so that in the evening I can just finish off the cooking. After that I mopped the floors upstairs and then sat down to use the internet for a while. I'm now heading back downstairs in order to finish off lunch preparations. As if by magic, everything got done and I feel great.

I used to find myself running up and down (literally) doing a little bit over here and then another bit over there. I did get things done but it was more time consuming and I'd feel guilty about sitting down in front of the computer. Now I put all of the things I wanted to do on the list and I could allow myself some time on the computer without feeling bad about it.

Obviously this is not a miracle trick but it requires getting down to it and actually doing all the things on the list in the order you've written them down and completing each task before moving on to the next one. I'll get back with more Total Woman stuff as I read on.

Back to school

Some papaya flowers the kids love to bring in from the backyard.

All of a sudden the classes start on Monday! We got a nice ex-teacher's discount for the kids' school fees from the private school where I taught English last semester so we enrolled both of them there. The school is small and cosy and the classes are small (so far three enrolled in princess' class but surely there'll be more in due course). Pricess is so excited she can hardly sleep for two more nights!

Lately I have done quite a bit of reading about homeschooling. Unfortunately I don’t have access to any books around here (sure, Amazon delivers here in the bushes as well but dollar prices are out of reach at the moment) so I’ve been relying on the wonderful websites I’ve found. I’ve also discovered several interesting blogs that I’ve started to follow.

The kids are only 2 and 4 and if we were in Finland I wouldn’t even think about “schooling” them in any way. Over there they’d be in the nursery and pre-school, start school at 7 and learn to read and write then (unless they learned by themselves earlier). But over here it’s different. The kids start pre-school at 4 so princess will now start her second year of pre-school. First year of pre-school is for the vocals and for the numbers 1-10. Second year they introduce more letters and most of the children learn to read and write then (although there's no pressure to do so). I haven’t studied any pedagogy so I don’t know what’s best; teach the kids to read and write early (as done over here) or leave it for when school starts (as done in Finland). However we’re here and I obviously have to take a stand about princess learning her letters. As I want to support her pre-school work we’ve been looking at some letters at home too and she constantly asks about them and writes many of them in her drawings.

As soon as we decided to live in Brazil it was clear to me that I wanted to teach my kids some subjects at home. I have my doubts about the school system over here although I know some really good and inspiring teachers too. There are certain things (such as European geography and history) that are taught very lightly and I want to make sure my kids learn them in more depth. I also want to cover Finnish grammar and literature as well as English with the kids. At first I thought I’d simply buy the books in Finland and give the kids normal classes at home in the afternoons. Then I started to read about homeschooling and got great new ideas.

Full time homeschooling isn’t an option for us as it’s illegal in Brazil and I don’t want to bribe any school officials or anyone else in order to have my kids at home. So far they both love going to nursery and pre-school so we pretend to keep them there. The kids study only four hours a day (even when in higher grades) so that leaves a lot of time for interesting homeschooling during the rest of the day. Our solution then is to homeschool part-time. That may not even count as homeschooling for some “real” homeschoolers but after much thought and talking about it that’s what we see as the best arrangement for us. And that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it; what suits each family best.

I’ve been soaking in all the wonderful ideas about lap-books and notebooks. Notebooking really seems to be what I want to do. I guess I’ve been notebooking for years already, it’s just that now I’ve got a name for it! We’ve actually already started a nature notebook and we’ll soon start a kitchen notebook as well since the princess is really into cooking, baking and general helping out in the kitchen.

I’ll get things organised for some home-pre-schooling already this year. At the moment all the great homeschooling ideas will help me to organise our afternoons and give the kids some meaningfull things to do. They don’t seem to get enough of crafting and as much as I love crafting too I do sometimes run out of ideas. So some planning ahead isn’t such a bad idea I guess. I really liked the idea of having a weekly theme. Even if we don’t stick to it every day it still gives a nice framework for crafting, reading etc. And it makes planning a bit easier as well.

Summing it all up: I’m excited about the new school year that’s just starting and I’m looking forward to putting into practice all the new ideas I’ve come across lately.

Back online

We thought there was simply a problem with our neighbour’s modem but as it turns out loads of telephone cables had simply burned (probably during a thunder storm a few days ago) on our street. So we’ve been several days without internet connection. It’s been strange as I’m used to checking my e-mail and reading different blogs and websites several times a day. Maybe it’s been good too; I’ve spent less time on computer and more time doing other things.

On Monday I started the theological seminar at church. It’s been great. I remember having enjoyed it just as much the first time in July. For a stay-at-home-mama it’s been wonderful to just sit, listen, take notes and learn new things!

In July we studied bibliology, an overview of the New Testament, hermeneutics and homilectics. This time we’re doing pneumatology (study of the Holy Spirit), Pentateuch, geography of the Bible and systematic theology (I have no idea if this is what the subjects are called in English, I simply translated them from Portuguese...). And there are so many interesting things yet to come. The seminar is twice a year and it lasts four years.

I’ll also start new English classes on Monday. I already have two students for the adult group, which I’m really thankful for. I also pretend to start a group for children between 8 and 12 years but so far no one has said they’d come so we’ll see if that works out or not. Two private conversation classes should start soon again after the vacation and the kids will go back to nursery and pre-school within a few weeks. So summer vacation is practically over and it’s back to business.

There’s one more thing to come before really starting the everyday routines. We have a church camp during the carnival in the beginning of February. Last year we went just for one night without the kids but this time we’ll all go. We’ll be camping and the kids will most certainly love it. The speaker will be a pastor from Mato Grosso and I'm hoping there’ll be special things for the kids too.

Blogger trouble and animal week

I finally managed to log in to my blogger account. I kept getting an error message and when I went to look for help I was directed to a Google group where I couldn't post a question because their log in system didn't work... I cleared cache, deleted cookies, enabled Java script (not that I understand what any of these really mean) but nothing helped. Finally I restarted the computer and that seems to have done the trick. However I'm not able to publish a post in my blog in Finnish as the actual "publish post" button doesn't appear underneath the message. This blog seems to be working although I don't get any pictures ("an error on the page") but at least I'm able to write and (hopefully) publish the post.

So our week with the animal theme didn't really happen apart from that animal poster on Monday. We were busy doing some other things plus the kids spent one day at my husband's sister's. That was great as I got a real day off. We even went out for lunch! I was working on my book resume which I finally finished yesterday. I'm pleased to have it done although it took me an awfully long time.

The animal theme has however been happening in real life for some time in quite unpleasant ways. Let me share some things birefly: A few weeks ago I noticed some hot chocolate left overs in a mug just after breakfast and without thinking about it twice drank it. As I got it in my mouth I felt there was something else there than just the hot chocolate. As I was about to remove that someting else it bit me in the lip. It was a fairly big ant that had dived into the mug for a morning bath and wasn't happy about ending up in my mouth.

Some time ago as I was about to wash the dishes in the afternoon I noticed something strange in the sink. It turned out to be a soaking wet shivering bat who actually swam (I had no idea bats swim!) in the water. After I drained the sink he (she?) hid under the pile of plates and I had no intentions of removing him. Husband got that delightful task as he got home.

And then there are the ticks. The dogs are FULL of them. It's really awful and makes the dogs feel bad too. We always use a tick prevention medicin that is simply poured in the back of the dog's neck and it works for a few months at a time. I however keep forgetting when we applied it the last time so the tick explosion always catches us by surprise. Tomorrow my husband's off to get some of that medicine and hopefully the doggies are better (tick-free) soon.

Oh, and did I mention the havoc the dogs caused the other day? They escaped and completely destroyed the mini plantation we made with the kids. I managed to save one little pot. And just as everything had started to grow. I'm quite upset with myself that I wasn't able to take better care of the little plants. The kids were so excited about them. But I guess we'll just do it all again. Also Matti (one of the dogs) found our soap bar delicious. It's a home made soap that my mother-in-law makes using animal fat. I guess it still smells like pork because the dog just went crazy over the soap and jumped on the laundry sink in order to get the it from a high shelf. I never recovered any of it and he seems to be fine. Next time I'll keep the soap indoors.

And then there are the spiders. Thankfully they aren't poisonous but they sure are disgusting. I've learned to live with the tiny ones that just jump and run away but the big hairy ones... I don't think I'll ever get used to them. A few months ago one was inside my jeans and I only discovered it as I was getting dressed. That caused a lot of screaming and even crying as I got so scared. After that there have been a few around; one in the laundry sink and another one on the edge of the patio. They try to get indoors during the rainy season and that's why we see so many of them, or that's what I've been told anyway.

Enough of insect and dog stories for now. The theological seminar at church starts today and I'll try to get some rest before the classes (from 7 pm until 11 pm, way too late for me).

"How do I open the glue?"

Our neighbour's son came over this morning to play with the kids. I wanted to make some thank you cards for the people who sent us all the lovely things yesterday so I invited him to join us. He had no clue as to what we were going to do and why although I had told him we'd make some cards. It was as if it didn't make any sense to him to "make cards". I gave the kids some cardboard and let them choose some pictures to glue on the cards. I gave the boy the glue stick and he didn't know how to open it and what to do with it. I instructed him and off he went. After they were done I gave them some crayons and coloured pencils and told them they could decorate the cards as they pleased. He asked me what he was supposed to do. I told him he was free to draw anything he wanted to and off he went. Then he wanted to write his name but the problem was you can only write things with a proper pencil. The coloured ones aren't for writing purposes. He later accepted a black pencil and off he went.

At school over here (I'm talking about a small town in Brazil's backlands, not the whole country) there's no real art instruction at school. Kids do some crafting in nursery and pre-school and probably some still in the lower grades but it's all very adult-led, organised and pre-meditated. I was over at the neighbour's some time ago and the kids (ours and theirs) were colouring. My neighbour told her son not to make a mess with the colouring and to colour only in one direction. I had to force myself into silence. I mean what on earth does it matter if a child (or an adult for that matter) colours in different directions!

In the school where I taught last semester both the teachers and the kids are very worried about all artwork being pretty. The kids are being praised if their drawing came out pretty and constantly warned not the make anything ugly. Who decides what's pretty and what's ugly anyway? I hate to think about how many kids get upset because the teacher said their artwork was't pretty due to their choice of colours or to the fact that they coloured outside the lines.

So at home we try to do lots of different kinds of crafting as well as simply free drawing and painting. I really want the kids to feel the joy of creating something without having to worry if someone else likes the outcome or not. I often give them an idea as to what we could make that time and I sometimes help them along but I try not to interfere too much. It really doesn't matter what I think about their artwork as long as they've had fun doing it.

Glad to get that out. Now I can continue my day :)

Theme of the week: animals

We made this animal poster already on Monday but we didn't have internet connection until last night so the posting comes a bit late. This week's theme is animals and we started by searching for different kinds of animals in old magazines (yes, again, I tend to keep everything just in case). The kids loved looking at mum's magazines and being allowed to cut them! They also love glue so this was a fun activity.

Before putting the poster together we spread out four A4 papers and classified the animals in three categories (land, sea and sky). That's probably not scientifically very accurate but the kids are quite small still so I thought that'd be an easy way to classify them. We did also talk about what mammal means and how some animals lay eggs instead but that's how far the biology lesson went this time.

End of nature theme

Today was the last day with the nature theme and we planted some flowers and veggies. First the kids decorated the labels for the pots (recycled, as per usual; a few old plastic bottles, a milk carton, a yoghurt container and a slightly broken plastic container). Then we went out and did the actual planting. Now we just keep our fingers crossed that something actually happens!

God's Promises

We made these wonderful little cards with God's promises to accompany the grandparents during the 18 hours or so that they will have to sit in the bus. The princess did the drawing and I looked for some Bible verses with comforting promises.

Flower cards

The kids made these flower cards yesterday. The one on the left (made by the princess) was sent to a little baby girl who was born a few months ago and the one on the right was given to their grandparents wishing them a safe journey as they left today to visit some relatives.

Fantasy trees

We continued on the tree theme today. I have worked before using drawings of hands as leaves of a big tree but I got this idea from Perpetual Preschool. You draw the child's hand and some of the arm and make that the tree.

You can then glue anything you like for the leaves. We used little pieces of coloured paper and cardboard, some of their own watercolour paintings that we cut up as well as some tiny pieces of leftover felt from my Christmas crafting (yes, I keep almost everything just in case).

And this is how they looked when done.

Theme of the week: nature

The handprints and little brother's paintings (in the middle).

So I organised the remaining summer holiday weeks and decided upon a theme for each week. We started with nature and today we simply walked around our own backyard and looked for different kinds of leaves. We actually found quite a few different kinds and the kids thought it was fun to pull leaves from the trees with mum's permission...

We then organised all the leaves and observed the different shapes. That sounded awfully fancy. In all truth it went like this: I organised the leaves and tried to point out some fun shapes and the differences between the leaves while princess was constantly asking: "now what do we do with the leaves?" and little brother was just messing about with his own things. When I finally pulled out the watercolours they were both delighted as they love painting.

I showed them how to paint the leaves and print them on the paper. Princess made lovely experiments mixing colours and even little brother tried making his own prints. They then proceeded to painting their own hands with different colours and making lots of handprints. Little brother also just painted random stuff.

Princess' leaves on the left. I loved the colours she created. The big leaf in the middle she printed first with red and then with black on top of the red print.

New Year resolutions

I'm not really in for new year's resolutions. I understand that it seems like a good time of the year for starting new things and changing old habits but I've also seen all the good intentions vanish in the air come February. However I've found myself thinking a lot about some things these first days of the new year and I've even caught myself promising myself to start doing certain things this year. So I guess you could say I'm making new year resolutions after all...

I'm planning to do lots more crafting by myself and also with the kids. Just these days especially our princess has shown a great deal of initiative when it comes to being creative. She made some decorations for the dinner table cutting and folding bits and pieces of white paper. She also drew a picture of each family member to show where everyone was supposed to sit at the table. This morning I found her playing about with nails in the kitchen; she made pictures and letters with them (and even cleaned up once she was done!). Both kids are also really into theatre and dressing up. Today we made these bracelets with beads. The princess made hers all by herself (on the left) and I made the ones for the little brother. The red beads are real seeds and the black ones are plastic. They made me think of blueberries and wild strawberries in the summer.

Little brother's classes will start again on Jan 28th and princess is at home until mid-February. I got a good idea from Two straight lines (from a posting in June) about organising holiday time at home with kids. I wish I had thought about it earlier. But I still have a month or so to organise. I also found all these great sites with ideas for activities and crafting with kids (I'll have new links up soon). So I'm bursting with energy and new ideas. There are times when homeschooling seems really appealing although most of the time I'm really happy with the thought of having the kids at pre-school. Maybe I could combine those too as pre-school is only until noon and we have the whole afternoon to ourselves...

I also want to concentrate more on the kids, i e actively spend time with them. And that will start now. They're waiting for me already in the living room.

Smells good in the kitchen

I made an apple pie yesterday and it made the whole kitchen smell really yummy. The recipe is really simple and quick to make. The recipe for the crust comes from Hellapoliisi.

For the crust you need

150 g margarine
100 ml sugar
1 egg
150 ml plain white flour
150 ml oatmeal
2 tsp baking powder

Mix together the margarine and the sugar, add the egg mixing well and then add the rest of the ingredients. Use some more flour if it's too sticky. Press the crust into a pie form (mine is 25 cm and this fit well).

For the filling I used some 300 ml of vanilla sauce. I made it from a sachet and used a little less milk than said in the instructions just to make it a little thicker. I then covered the sauce with two apples peeled and sliced. Some cinnamon and sugar on top and into to oven (175-200 centigrades) for roughly half an hour. Once done it's a good idea to let it settle (as well as cool down) for a good while.